Don't Wake the Dragon
by Zavocado
Summary: The aftermath of Jon's parentage being revealed. Originally a one-shot from Tyrion's POV, now expanded to include Jon and Daenerys. Jonerys.
1. TYRION

**A/N:** So I finally sucked it up and gave into the posting bug. Something's gotta give when you've got 25 Jonerys fics started on your Google Drive and nobody to read them :) So, hi, new fandom! -waves-

This chapter was the original story. It was only meant to be this one-shot, but comments convinced me otherwise.

So, brief notes: This chapter is Tyrion's POV and encompasses the entire story. The following chapters rotate between Jon and Dany and overlap as the same storyline.

Enjoy!

 **TYRION**

Inevitability clung to Jon Snow after the truth came out.

Bran Stark's decision to blurt everything out in the Great Hall of Winterfell with every Northern lord and lady present—even while Samwell Tarly tried to dissuade him— had seemed like a tragic idea when it had happened. Nothing could have prepared Tyrion for it. Not the stoic, flat delivery nor the unbelievable story; not the hushed breaths as Jon Snow— _Aegon Targaryen—_ faltered at the youngest Stark's words.

" _Eddard Stark is not your father."_

Ned Stark ought to have taught his children a bit more tact.

Tyrion still felt like he was seated in that evening, the hearths roaring around the hall as a winter storm raged outside. A hundred people had sat in stunned silence. More than anything, he would never forget the rawness in Jon Snow's eyes; the aching loneliness that had bloomed in his own gut with every revealing word. Jon Snow had only stood there. Alone, in the center among his lords and ladies, as the world had shattered underneath his steady feet.

Almost a fortnight later, Jon was still King in the North despite bending the knee. Daenerys had insisted her lover remained titled on their journey north. The decision had made a convoluted sort of sense, particularly with the agreed upon marriage alliance. A rough marriage alliance, to be sure, but Tyrion had been satisfied enough with the addition by the time they'd met the Dothraki on the Kingsroad. The North's king would wed the rightful Queen. Jon hadn't a name to give then, and so Daenerys would remain a Targaryen. Simple. He was the only real option Daenerys had left for a husband on a somewhat equal landing. And now...

Tyrion continued to catch himself staring at the man—the never suspected rightful heir to the Iron Throne—trying to glimpse _something_ he'd missed. A wisp of silver-gold hair among the tamed dark curls. Perhaps a ring of violet or pale lilac hidden in his stormy gray eyes. A tiny hint of any Targaryen feature that might have given away Ned Stark's greatest lie.

He found nothing. Not even the fiery spark of a dragon like the one that curled itself in Daenerys's gaze. Jon Snow was Stark and wolf and Northern strength.

 _Don't wake the dragon,_ he'd once heard Daenerys say. But this secret Targaryen had no dragon to wake.

The northern lords and ladies had surprised Tyrion most in the aftermath. At first, they'd been a cacophony of disbelief and arguing. For two days, Winterfell had been in an uproar. Jon Snow had been yanked in a hundred different directions from dawn to dusk and then well into the night. Tyrion had kept his distance. The entire Targaryen host had, watching the fallout.

By the third evening, however, tempers cooled. Every one of the Northern leaders had insisted on continuing the pledges they'd already sworn—Snow, Stark, Targaryen, it made no difference. He was their King. No matter his birth, he was of the North—the she-wolf's trueborn son raised by their old liege lord. He was one of them.

And that was a troubling reminder. One that Daenerys either didn't see or chose to ignore.

For months now, Tyrion had mulled over all sorts of plots and plans to sway the northerners to his Queen's side. Jon Snow had been a fundamental centerpiece for each. Once he'd accepted Daenerys's claim, Jon could bridge the blood-filled crypt that Robert's Rebellion had created between Targaryen and Stark.

Only now, Jon was a son of both. A Targaryen the northerners had knowingly chosen to lead them. A Stark with a claim the southron lords would accept. A ruler who was not Daenerys, but just as worthy of the claim. Regardless of the name he chose, Jon Snow had all he needed to claim the Iron Throne he didn't want.

And so far, Tyrion hadn't figured out where Daenerys stood with any of it. The first night, her eyes had glimmered with hope and unrelenting joy. To not be the last Targaryen—to have another of her blood to share the weight and burden of the Targaryen legacy—had outshone anything. Tyrion had breathed a little easier then, despite Jon's mute reaction. The last dragons, together and in love. Perhaps that was the easy lullaby to end all the madness.

Two days of that gentle hope passed before something hard settled between his Queen and Jon Snow. Even Tyrion had found himself lulled by false hope when he'd seen the pair on the battlements at dawn the morning after Bran's revelations. His stomach had still twisted with anxiety at the heaviness of their love. Yet seeing his Queen rest her head against Jon Snow's neck, for his arms to hold her as his cheek rested on her braids, had dissipated one worry.

Jon and Daenerys would wed and share the crown. A simple solution.

Together they would balance each other's impulses with his guidance. The realm would finally have peace if they all survived.

But nothing about their current situation was that easy. Like lightning forking the night sky, the pair ceased speaking, outside of necessity, overnight. All the knowing looks Tyrion had become exasperatingly fond of exchanging with Davos stopped. Nobody found the Queen and King standing too close together. Their eyes didn't meet across the war council room, alight with a secret, shared fondness. None of the servants were caught gossiping about finding the pair at the end of a dreary corridor in each other's arms like on the boat north. Neither of their lord Hands had to rattle their chamber doors when they were too busy with each other to break their fasts at a reasonable hour.

Jon Snow was as inscrutable as ever, but his eyes held a harshness, deep and chilling, that filled Tyrion with dread. Daenerys simmered all the while, a dragon smoldering, ready to lunge.

By day four, Tyrion had reasoned out that sharp turnaround, too. Jon Snow had denied her, clearly. His Queen wasn't used to such refusal, especially not in a bedchamber. Tyrion had prepared for some sort of honorable fit of madness from the King in the North—for the knowledge of his blood connection to his lover to stall their blossoming romance. The enormity of the truth had to claw into Jon and shatter back out into the world somehow.

On the fifth day, Missandei blasted that certainty to every one of the seven hells.

He'd invited her, Varys, and Davos to his drafty chambers to discuss their political plans moving forward. More than anything, they needed to address how to make Jon Snow less ridiculous about something so common in Westeros. Davos and Varys had both given mute nods as Tyrion spoke of his observations, but Missandei had shifted, her eyes downcast.

"Forgive me, Lord Tyrion, but…" Missandei glanced up, both embarrassed and concerned. "Her Grace and Lord—King Jon—Aegon? They have shared Her Grace's bed since the discovery."

Not the night of, Tyrion and his fellow councilors learned. But the following night and the one after that. Missandei hadn't offered details the Queen may have shared or what she may have walked in on. Her trusted knowledge was enough. Their romance hadn't faltered. Not initially. Not until this coldness had engulfed them, and Tyrion…

He didn't have an answer for that. Neither did Varys, which boded far worse.

Still, he watched each of them, with Davos's help, in the following week. They were loyal to their individual and joint duties. Daenerys worked with her armies and Jon's lords, familiarizing them with each other and their collective strengths and weaknesses. She spent time with the Starks as well as Lady Mormont, acquainting herself as best she could to their bristling hostility.

Jon spent his days assisting in the construction of dragonglass weapons in Winterfell's forges and training every participant, from Dothraki screamer to northern child, in the yard. He gave Davos and Tyrion a true fright one frosty morning when he armed himself with not but a wooden shield and had the youngest fighters practice shooting arrows at him. Not one had ever shot at anything moving and breathing.

Bronn had nodded in approval at the sight.

"Bold fucker," he'd said, nodding at Jon's arrow-cracked oak shield and the beaming ten-year-old girl who'd hit her target a third time. "Best hope they don't make him a eunuch. I imagine the last available Targaryen seed needs planting."

Jaime gave a grim nod as he watched the next child step forward. "He's right to prepare them, get out the jitters of shooting at someone. They'll probably piss themselves on the field as is, but at least they'll be well-practiced at taking aim. A small comfort." He fell quiet in a way uncharacteristic of the brother Tyrion had grown up with, before adding, "It's what Rhaegar would have done."

Davos shook his head in resignation as Jon continued to drill the young group below. Like Tyrion, he didn't approve of the risk before the true war—wished someone else would take over. Winterfell had no true master-at-arms anymore. The few men responsible for training in the basics lacked the reflexes and brash idiocy to let children new to bow wielding shoot _at_ them.

Or courage. Tyrion hadn't quited decided how to define Jon's fearlessness of death yet.

 _Targaryen boldness with a dash of luck_ , Tyrion had reflected. How had he never noticed it before? Surely, Jon's budding relationships with Rhaegal and Drogon should have clued him in on the road north.

As the days past, Winterfell settled into the preparations of war. For anyone unfamiliar with them, the Queen and King were a seamless, cohesive unit. Their visual unity of divided responsibilities made a grand impression. A calm peace settled around the castle despite what was coming.

For Tyrion, they'd never been further apart.

Davos was at a loss as well. Neither of them had dared to breach the subject with their respective ruler yet, nor discuss the marriage alliance they'd agreed upon and announced before Bran's news. Tyrion thought hauntingly of the succession conversation gone wrong back on Dragonstone. Daenerys would yield nothing. Jon Snow was more agreeable, but every genuine aspect of him seemed to have shriveled like rotting flesh with the truth.

Was it regret and shame that drove him away? Had it taken a few days to process before Jon Snow's damned honor had kicked in?

No, Tyrion could see that falsehood with a single glance. Whatever had happened appeared to be mutual in their shared regret and longing.

Perhaps then, Jon had requested time and space to handle the identity crisis that shrouded him. But that too wasn't quite right. In the days following the revelation, Jon had declared his decision in the Great Hall: he would remain Jon Snow in name. Would collect no lands or titles more than he already held. He was still of the North, he'd said, as much a Stark as he'd ever been.

That was the first clue.

It nagged at Tyrion as he and Davos talked in circles while the days passed. Until the Stark sisters joined them one afternoon, a fortnight after the revelation. The sun had already set as the deep chasm of winter blanketed the land. When they'd been brought into the discussion, both women had chuckled in a disdainful way.

Arya spoke first, with all the grace and tact befitting a Stark.

"She's pissed he doesn't want to be a real Targaryen like her."

Sansa sipped her wine, eyes reproachful. "What my sister means, my lords, is that our brother does not wish to discover more of his… paternal heritage. Jon's a Stark, and that's enough for him."

Everything knitted itself together then, like a suffocating wool blanket.

Jon hadn't denied her his love or his body or their intimacy—he'd refused to be a dragon. Had denied her something far worse by insisting she was the world's last and only Targaryen.

That was much more difficult to navigate.

Daenerys, meanwhile, seemed to be viewing the rejection of his heritage as a challenge instead of taking it with patience or grace. She'd never been one to let another lead or deny her. Jon stood steadfast as the days slipped by, and Daenerys burned like an ember, radiating heat as much as she churned it inside herself. It wasn't the name, no. Tyrion had watched her accept the decision of Jon's name with ease as they'd sat side-by-side in the Great Hall.

This was deeper, almost carnal.

It was the stories of Rhaegar that Jon refused to hear from her or Jaime. The lack of him beside her when she visited Drogon and Rhaegal in the snowdrift fields beyond Winterfell's armored walls. The dragons' keening cries at his sudden absence after so many weeks of companionship and bonding on the road north. Even his steadiness when Jon didn't submit to Daenerys's growing impulses for fire and blood during councils—shielded himself from the legacy of Targaryen rage and heat that Daenerys only emboldened.

By the end of their first fortnight at Winterfell, Tyrion relented. One evening over wine while he and his Queen discussed the slow, lumbering pace of the Night King's army marching south he nudged her like a sparking log in the fire. She hadn't said much when he'd inquired after Jon Snow and herself. While he'd talked himself into silence, Daenerys had finished her wine and stood.

"Sometimes you have to wake the dragon."

Her words cracked and split the air, filling Tyrion with dread once more.

"Your Grace, I'm not sure I follow."

But he did, and wished he couldn't.

"Viserys was not a true dragon. Not like me, but Jon is."

 _And I will prove it to him._

Tyrion heard the ringing declaration without her saying it. He found himself alone after that, sweating in the frigid northern cold. His mind was resolutely stuck on the image of the frothing chaos in Jon Snow's eyes since he'd learned the truth. The man had had no true time to digest any portion of his true identity or what it meant. It seemed impossible he'd kept himself sane amongst any of this madness. And Daenerys intended to prod at that until… gods only knew what.

The following morning, Tyrion wasted no time warning Davos and the Stark sisters of the wolf and dragon about to butt heads. Or dragon and dragon. He wasn't quite sure anymore.

Arya had rolled her eyes and planned one-on-one training sessions to occupy Jon.

Sansa had said nothing, but her thoughtful gaze reflected her contempt.

Davos had shaken his head, sighed, and eyed the ceiling.

"He'll snap like a wolf more than breathe fire. Too many years in the cold."

None of their reactions were answers that would satisfy the Queen. Still Davos's words were a strange comfort as the next few days passed. Jon Snow was more Stark than Targaryen; a fierce wolf without a dragon's flame. Ice to her fire, as Varys had begun to mutter, a poetic union of balance.

Until Daenerys eased one biting talon into Jon, and then another and another. She sunk in with sharp words and brittle reminders while Jon's frown held his silence. Tyrion only learned of her plans after she'd begun to cut Jon down with her words.

When she'd drawn up an order for his name to legally be changed to Targaryen, Tyrion had watched Jon Snow toss it into the fire and walk away, unfazed.

The same had happened to Her Grace's order to name Jon her successor, in the case of her death. Tyrion hadn't cared much for that one either, no matter how much sense it made, particularly if the marriage alliance was no more.

But the rest of her steps grew bolder, harsher. One, that Tyrion had thought briefly himself that first night and then tossed aside, seemed to be the dagger Daenerys had searched for. She'd called for Jon to stay after one meeting, Tyrion as well to advise, and suggested something Tyrion would have never dared to voice on his own.

"Since you have not accepted my other proposals, I have decided your first-born will be my heir," Daenerys had said in the chilled council room. Even her fire couldn't bring warmth to that room when Jon Snow met her eyes. "The Targaryen bloodline can live on. You will wed—"

"I will do no such thing."

Tyrion had swallowed, ashen. Jon Snow had left the room without her dismissal, but the look on his face had been answer enough. A dragon lived inside him, and Daenerys had found her way to drag him out.

And she dug. Deeper with every comment, with every necessary meeting, with every request that he remain after the war council to discuss the future of House Targaryen. Tyrion watched it all. Daenerys twisted her fire into word games that Jon hadn't the patience or time to play.

For a week, Jon masked his face, stayed even-tempered instead of quick-tempered like his Queen.

Steady. Dependable. Calm.

Yet a change flickered in his eyes as the days passed—one Tyrion almost didn't catch whenever it appeared. Quick as the light of flaming ash off a molten sword, as the spark of steel and flint kindling into an inferno.

Tyrion had never dared imagine the dragon Daenerys was determined to pull into the world. One infinitesimal blaze in those thunder gray eyes was enough.

But not for Daenerys Stormborn. Never for the Mother of Dragons.

 _Don't wake the dragon_.

She'd once told him of how her brother had used it as a threat to keep her timid.

"But he was no real dragon," she'd said then, certain with the dry heat of Meereen embracing them. "Any dragon he thought himself was weak and never slept. Sickly. Fire gives a dragon strength, not weakness or death."

He'd seen the partial-truth of that when she let her own fire burn through her veins and into the world. Here in Winterfell, he saw it as she demanded a proof Tyrion feared to see.

Viserys's dragon had been ever-present and feeble.

Daenerys's simmered with heat, always willing to boil.

Jon Snow had only ever allowed himself to be a wolf.

Until the day the refugees from Last Hearth arrived, and Daenerys's temper flooded the council chambers. She'd been nettling Jon for days, cutting with words that nobody dared to combat; edging him, closer and then back a step, like she would a lover in a passionate game for control. And perhaps that was part of it, Tyrion mused. Some elaborate foreplay that Jon Snow hadn't caught on to and wouldn't until they fell into her bed once again.

Tyrion couldn't even recall what they'd been discussing when it happened, but Jon snapped. The usual gnashing fangs of a wolf were gone.

"You do not make decisions for me, Daenerys."

A chill that had nothing to do with the snow and wind swirling outside overtook Tyrion. His lungs seemed to rattle in his chest. He almost didn't want to look at Jon Snow in that moment, feared to see a dragon that had never been quenched or tamed.

"Lord Snow, you _will_ —"

"I will do as I deem right."

Tyrion did look then. From the burning triumph in Daenerys's gaze across the table to Jon Snow. They might have been alone in that room by the way their eyes caught. Flames rose in Jon's eyes, burning dark and cold. He held fire in his words, in the frigidity of his tone, but it was unlike anything Tyrion had expected. Something white-hot and smothering he'd prepared for. Even the volcanic, red flames Daenerys unleashed had made sense. Jon didn't burn so much as crack; harsher than the cold outside that could freeze blood and bone. That gnawed into the marrow and devoured.

 _Don't wake the dragon._

Tyrion's mind turned the words into a chant. Everyone else in the room seemed to shrink into their chairs or back toward the nearest wall. He wished any warning he gave his Queen would be heeded. Because a dragon had been with Jon all along, chained but never tamed. Controlled only by being caged in something that seared worse than any warming fire. Never woken in all his twenty-two years, only re-caged and molded, growing in strength all the while.

A dragon cannot be tamed and, somehow, he'd found himself advising two.

 _Don't wake the dragon_.

But Daenerys had learned a long time ago the inevitability of doing just that.

"You will do as your rightful Queen commands, Lord Snow." She met his gaze, already burning with him.

"I will do what is right by my people."

Daenerys's chest rose and fell slowly as fire filled her gaze. "Leave us."

Every advisor scattered for the doors. Tyrion was the last out, hobbling on his stunted legs, but he glanced back as he tugged the door closed. Ice and fire, somehow both aflame. Daenerys hadn't moved. Jon's leathers and sleeves bunched with the tensing of his limbs and muscles. Tyrion shut the door.

Davos led Tyrion to his chambers a few doors away, and pulled an ancient bottle of rum out to be shared. They waited and sipped. Not five minutes in, the first echoing shatter twisted down the corridor from the council chamber. Several more followed like an arm had swiped every lovely still half-full wine flagon from the table.

Davos downed his cup and refilled it. "About time they got back to that."

Tyrion nodded. Something clattered against the stone floor down the hall, followed by the dull thump of a body against the shut door. He'd heard that particular sound enough on the ship north to know what it meant. A high, pleased moan reached Tyrion's ears before it was silenced. Davos only chuckled. Like Tyrion, he was relieved this attempted disaster had reached its end.

Together, they drank to the Queen and King's good health.

An hour later, the shouting began. Davos flinched as the Queen's voice echoed out of the room, the door slamming open. Footsteps hurried down the hall. Tyrion opened Davos's door in time to see Jon Snow storming away with Daenerys's furious face following.

Davos finished his rum as the pair thundered off. "Maybe not. I'm really starting to wish these two had more experience with this sort of thing."

Tyrion sighed and followed his Queen's voice along the halls, out into the courtyard. A public display was not ideal. Thankfully, the courtyard was near empty. Jon said nothing as he walked, his pale direwolf joining him at the gates. He marched right through, Daenerys still snarling at his heels. They made it a hundred yards from Winterfell's outer wall before Jon stopped. Tyrion and Davos paused several feet behind the Queen.

"It is _not_ your decision."

Daenerys's shoulders stiffened. "I have as much right as you to say what should happen. This is your _birthright_. You cannot—"

"When has birthright ever meant a damn thing to me?"

Jon turned to face her, the chilling rage from earlier swirling in his eyes. If anything, he seemed less stable than before, more fractured like the icy shell of a lake cracking open for the spring. Tyrion took a step forward, a hand reaching gently for Daenerys's arm. This had gone on long enough.

"Your Grace, please—"

But Jon had turned away again, made it two paces before Daenerys was after him. Her words whipped out like tongues of flame.

"Do not walk away from me, Jon Snow. I am _your_ Queen. You will not break your vow to me like you did the Night's Watch."

Wind cut through Tyrion's jerkin and cloak. If he'd believed in such powers, he would have assumed the bite was Jon's. The sharp cut of the brittle cold on his skin, the snow kicked up and slapping against him. He'd heard the stories. From the wildlings, the northern lords, the few Night's Watch brothers that had escaped from Castle Black. Even from Jorah and Davos.

Jon Snow was no oathbreaker.

A man couldn't give his life for his word and be called such things.

At some point, Tyrion vowed to teach his Queen and her King how to argue constructively instead of viciously. This wouldn't bode well if it continued.

Ghost turned first this time, no longer docile and patient. A silent snarl peeled back his lips, his hackles raised as he bared his teeth at Daenerys. After the weeks of gentle nuzzling and padding along at her side, it was an alarming difference.

"Your Grace, perhaps we should go inside and—"

"I will do no such thing."

But he heard the slight waiver in his Queen's voice. She'd crossed a line from which she couldn't step back. Jon hadn't turned to face them yet. The snow picked up, twisting in the air around them, freezing and melting against Tyrion's cheeks. Ghost's bleeding red eyes watched them. Yet even over the lonely howl of the wind Jon's voice was crystalline.

"Never say that to me again."

Daenerys didn't back down. "A queen says what she wills, Jon Snow. You still live and breathe, yet you do not hold yourself to your oath. Will you do the same with the vows sworn to me?"

Jon Snow faced her then.

"You want me to give my life to you as well, is that it? You want my corpse at your feet so you don't have to worry about some damn claim I don't want? Or would you rather marry me off and breed me like some Targaryen dog?"

Daenerys flinched as Ghost lunged forward a pace. "Jon, all I want is—"

"What? To keep stabbing me from all sides with whatever words you've got today? I gave my life to the Watch. For every one of those men and every one of the Free Folk, so don't talk to me about oaths. I know what those words mean better than _any_ of you. I lived them. I _died_ for them. My word is my life. It is _all_ I've ever had, so don't belittle it to prove a point."

A screech echoed through the snowy fog, and the ground shook under Tyrion's feet. He swayed with Davos, Daenerys tottering in front of them. One of the dragons rushed at Jon's back, its coloring indistinguishable through the heavy snow. Daenerys reached toward Jon as the dragon roared in fury.

"Jon!"

The dragon came to a halt right behind him. And Jon Snow, breathing heavily and looking for all the world like he'd left his sanity back at Dragonstone two months ago, never even glanced behind himself. As the dragon screamed once again, Ghost gave another gnashing snap of his jaws.

Tyrion watched the scene in wonder, shielding his eyes from the snow. It was Rhaegal. His majestic green scales were just iridescent enough to be distinguished from the gray world. He curled one wing around Jon's right side, his neck around the left. Face to face with Daenerys, Rhaegal let out a screech Tyrion hoped to never hear again.

"Rhaegal? It's me. It's all right."

The dragon snapped at her.

Another roar split the sky as Drogon slammed into the ground beside his brother.

Davos cursed behind Tyrion and didn't bother protecting his pride. He grabbed Tyrion by the collar and flung them both behind the nearest tree.

Drogon's rage echoed around the field, deeper and angrier than Rhaegal's. Tyrion half-expected the two dragons to be tearing at each other when he peered around the tree line. Instead he found himself stunned. Like Rhaegal, Drogon's snout was feet from Daenerys, a protective wing canopied over each Targaryen to shield them from the snow.

For the first time since they'd met so many years ago, Tyrion Lannister looked upon Jon Snow and understood every hidden truth in him.

He was every inch a Targaryen dragonlord then. A King of Winter, too.

His cloak billowed around him, his shoulders rose and fell with the heaving breaths of his fury. Two dragons and his faithful direwolf wrapped their protection around him, armored him against the person closest to his heart.

Daenerys flinched. Drogon didn't snap at her like Ghost or Rhaegal had, but he rumbled like molten thunder all the same.

"Jon, I was only—"

"I won't do it," Jon said and his fury wavered. "I can't. I don't want _any_ of it. Not the name or the titles or _him_ to be my—"

Behind him Rhaegal began to settle, Ghost stepped back and closer to his side, calming. Drogon shifted to nuzzle Daenerys as she took a tentative step forward.

A hundred possibilities chased each other through Tyrion's mind. If he was honest, Tyrion had considered all of Jon's reasons for denial every night since their relationship had fractured. As always, Ned Stark had been central. To be Ned Stark's son was an insurmountable dream Jon had chased all of his life. Only he was Rhaegar's seed. A truth that was seeping its way across the realm; a truth that could not be lost once more to the dark past. His impossible dream had ended.

Jon's legs buckled under him. He sank to his knees in the snow, falling forward but Daenerys caught him. She cradled him in her arms as the dragons and direwolf settled protectively around them, shielding them from the storm.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, I'm sorry, you're right. It's your choice. I shouldn't have kept _pushing_ you, but you pushed me away and I just..."

Davos stepped carefully from behind their tree. Tyrion followed.

"Best give them a minute," Davos said. He sighed like he couldn't decide if he was pleased or miserable. "Really wish Bran had waited to dump this on him until _after_ all these damn wars."

Tyrion huffed out a weak chuckle. "Starks have no tact."

"Not sure Targaryens do either."

Tyrion gazed through the snow at Jon and Daenerys curled up in each other's arms. Beside them, Ghost and Rhaegal were snout to snout, sniffing curiously. Drogon lumbered over all of them, watchful.

"Come, that rum won't finish itself."

Together, Tyrion and Davos returned to Winterfell and shut themselves away in Davos's room. This time they pulled their chairs to the whistling wind at the window and away from the boiling fire. They drank and watched Jon and Daenerys, two little dark pinpricks in the snowy field. Rhaegal and Drogon had disappeared. Ghost was impossible to spot against the snow. After almost an hour, Jon and Daenerys made their way back to the castle.

"We'll give them tonight," Davos decided as he closed the shutters on his window. "You want to solo them tomorrow or do a joint council?"

"Joint, I think. They'll be the King and Queen of Westeros soon enough. A unit. Best to treat them as such."

Davos nodded at him and they separated for the night. At first light, Tyrion dressed and headed for the Queen's chambers on the floor below his own. They'd been set up in the Guest House of Winterfell, quite far from the Lord's Chambers, but not so far from Jon Snow's. For humble reasons Tyrion could only guess at, Jon Snow had given Sansa the Lord's Chambers and taken a small, dusty room as his own.

At the bottom of the stairs, Davos and two Unsullied guards were waiting for him.

"His chamber's empty," was all Davos needed to say.

They strolled the curved length of the corridor in companionable silence. Really, Tyrion quite liked the former smuggler, despite their history on opposite sides of so many conflicts. Davos was a smart man and a shrewd mummer. For a king like Jon Snow, he was an excellent match.

"A good sign," Tyrion said as they paused at the door to the Queen's chamber. "Perhaps we'll have an easier time of this than we originally thought."

Davos offered a tight smile. "Never that simple with these two, my lord. Now you've said it…"

Tyrion sighed and knocked. For almost a minute the corridor and the room beyond was silent, then the bolt scraped against the wood and the door opened. Ghost greeted them, bleeding red eyes crusty with sleep.

Davos gave him an affectionate pat on the head, but Tyrion stilled. He hadn't come face-to-face with the direwolf since he was a pup on their journey to the Wall. Ghost tilted his head and blocked Tyrion from the room. His snout was as high as Tyrion's forehead, his paws the size of a child's practice shield.

"Ghost, it's been a long time." Tyrion held out a hand, but Ghost stepped right into him and sniffed his hair from one ear to the other. Seemingly satisfied, the direwolf turned from him and padded over to the fur rug in front of the fire.

Davos chuckled, then nodded to the bed just out of sight behind the door. Tyrion stepped in and shut it, relief seeping into his bones. His Queen and her King were still asleep. Daenerys was propped up in bed with Jon's cheek resting on her chest, one of her hand's tangled into his curls. He rested on his stomach, and from the slight tents in the furs, Tyrion guessed still between her legs.

"Definitely a good sign." Davos stepped a few paces closer to the bed. He prodded Jon's bare shoulder as Tyrion lingered by the door. "Your Grace?"

A grumble, a shift of his dark head, and Jon slept on. Dark rings framed his closed eyes, a few half-dried wet trails lined his cheeks and ran into his beard. Daenerys shifted beneath him to adjust, and Tyrion ducked his gaze when he realized the gray tunic she wore was Jon's and not her own.

Davos seemed to realize the potential for nudity, too. He prodded Daenerys's arm instead.

"Your Grace?"

She blinked slowly, her arm around Jon's back curling tighter. Then she spotted Tyrion by the door and Davos leaning over the bed.

"My lords, forgive me, we've overslept."

"No apologies necessary, Your Grace," Davos said, all smiles. "It's still rather early."

Daenerys yawned into her palm and blinked slowly. Tyrion stepped a few paces closer.

"We were hoping to discuss several matters over breakfast, Your Grace. With you and your betrothed."

She nodded and Tyrion allowed himself a small smile then. No uncertain frowns at the title, no denials. Their marriage alliance still needed discussion, but that, at least, still appeared to be on.

"Any requests?"

Daenerys buried her fingers in Jon's hair, gently stroking his scalp.

"Bacon. And not burnt black for once."

Davos nodded. "We'll bring it up ourselves, Your Grace. Good luck rousing him."

He tapped Jon's head and the man didn't so much as stir. Daenerys only smiled. The beauty that smile, that simple moment, as she watched the man nestled against her filled Tyrion with a mingling tangle of peace and despair.

Love complicated everything. Politics, war, thrones, and claims. Yet, he couldn't deny the security of it with Daenerys and Jon. A solid, bold, untameable truth. They were as faithful to each other as they were to themselves and their strives to better the world.

Together, perhaps they could build that better world from the ashes that lingered after their wars were fought and won.

Together, they all just might survive this.


	2. JON

**A/N:** Well, I wasn't planning on revisiting this one from Jon and Dany's POV...but here we go! You crazy kids convinced me (I'm not difficult to convince when it comes to writing MORE).

So, first up is Jon. Right now, I'm planning just two for each of these lovelies, so Dany will follow this, then swing back to Jon, then one more time with Dany. A dance with dragons, as the good writer says, haha.

These will cover roughly the same time span that the original piece did as Tyrion's POV. Also mentioning this here since it's much more pertinent when I get into Jon and Dany's POVs, but I'm using a mixture of show and book canon. It's just more fun that way.

Cheers and enjoy!

 **JON**

Winterfell's crypts were gloomy solitude for the dead. Grim as its lords and the ancestors who'd built it, and full of dark alcoves with towering stone men and snarling direwolves.

As much as he'd longed for Winterfell to be his true home, it never had, no more than the final resting place for the Starks was welcoming. Around him a frigid dampness made the packed dirt harder than steel. Shadows crept around the stone likenesses, dancing in the light of the torch guttering at his feet. Still, Jon Snow sat huddled amongst them instead of the living, in an empty crypt that had been skipped over.

 _Robb's place,_ he thought, _right across from Father._

They'd had no bones to lay Robb to rest; had wished they hadn't needed to place Rickon's mangled body in the crypt beside it. Sansa had wanted a statue made for Robb with Grey Wind at his side. No stone mason alive could recall Robb's face, however, not as a child nor the king he'd been when he died. Neither of them had wanted another statue that looked nothing like their memories, so Robb's crypt remained pointedly empty. Another glimpse of what was lost, of a whole person who could never be found again.

Jon stared out from Robb's place at Lord Eddard Stark's solemn face and then toward the sad, young woman to his right. Aunt Lyanna, he'd been told, yet the truth grinded heavy in his head, like a corkscrew digging deep.

His mother. Here, all the time, right beneath his own bastard feet. Hidden in a chasm of his nightmares, old and new and unopened. Near all of his nightmares dragged him down here. It seemed only fitting that his waking one would, too.

 _What would you think, if you could see the life I've had? Did you ever think at all?_

His mother stood stiff before him, colder than the Wall had ever been. Jon rubbed his temples and looked away from her worn, stone eyes.

As a boy, he'd always imagined his mother as beautiful, highborn and kind. He'd gotten his wish, it seemed, but no fantasy had ever felt so barbarous. At the Wall, Jon had accepted the truth he'd expected to hear, but never been told. His mother had been some common whore or fisherman's daughter that Lord Stark met on campaign. Or the Lady Ashara Dayne that he'd heard whispers about as a child. Perhaps, she'd been one of King Robert's camp followers, though he hadn't been a king then.

Instead, she'd been a she-wolf of the North, a woman grown and flowered, who'd run off with a married prince and eloped. She'd birthed him in a tower in Dorne, then promised him off to her brother with her dying breath. Her brother—his father, in all but blood.

His father.

Jon gazed at the man's stern, long face. Ned Stark's eyes stared right over him to the empty crypt where his son should stand. Or rather shouldn't. Robb had been far too young for a knife in the heart and mutiny. He had been as well.

 _Father. And Mother. Both down here together. My brothers, too. Cousins, in truth, and me in Robb's place, half as dead as him. One day, I'll be twice as dead as every Stark here._

His sharp bark of laughter echoed down the rows of crypts, mirthless and high-pitched, then chased itself back to Jon. He shook himself, but even then, he couldn't escape his last, most ridiculous wish.

"I'd rather be your incestuous bastard than anything else."

Such a truth would have been abhorrent. And near impossible considering how long Lyanna had been missing, but Jon still wished it. He could still be Lord Eddard's son, his bastard just as always, only he'd have a Stark mother, too. He'd be more Stark than any of them, no matter his name.

" _Eddard Stark is not your father."_

He felt half mad sitting there, stewing with grief and pain and a dark knot of fury twisting in his gut. Everything was a lie or a war or a mistake. Somehow, he was all three and left to deal with the consequences.

Jon drew his knees into his chest, burrowing himself into Robb's empty crypt. He pressed his forehead to his cold knees.

Foolishly, he'd expected the crypts to be quieter than the world above. With every Northern lord and lady demanding to see him after Bran's revelation, Jon's introduction of Daenerys had become an unproductive whirlwind. All evening and well into the night, Jon and Davos had met one shouting lord after the other in their makeshift council chambers. Most had been full of rage and spittle and near as much disbelief as Jon.

Only two had been quiet. Lady Mormont had welcomed him back with dignity, inquired about the dragonglass expedition, then departed. Lord Manderly had been a gentle way to end the midnight hour, calm and easy. As usual, he talked as much as he ate, but what he'd said had settled some of the tension thrumming through Jon.

"You're as much Stark now as yesterday, Your Grace. House Manderly will support you. Ignore the lot until they've had a few days. They all saw your face when Brandon spoke. Nothing holds as true as that."

 _Blood does_ , he'd thought at the time, but Jon hadn't said anything. He'd been too exhausted.

Despite the hour, Jon hadn't returned to his chambers afterward. He hadn't wound his way across the castle to the guest house where Daenerys slept either. Instead, he'd thought to seek out Ghost in the snowdrifts beyond the main gate. But at the first blossom of dragonflame warming his chest, he'd turned instead for the crypts.

Rhaegal was out there. Lighting the glittering moonlit sky with yellow-orange flame veined with green. Even from Winterfell's training yard, Jon flushed with the heat of the dragon's breath churning in his chest. Like with Ghost, he'd already begun to feel that melding of the dragon's mind with his own. It had been a powerful feeling, at the first. More abrupt and urgent than the gradual sense of Ghost in his mind, but from that first touch, Jon had felt it so deep it rattled his bones.

Now he knew why.

" _Eddard Stark is not your father."_

But surely he was. He'd been everything a father could to his bastard son. Ned Stark was the only father he'd ever known.

 _But I'm not his bastard, just his promise. He sent me to the Wall without a word. I'm an obligation and an oath he swore, nothing more._

He was someone else's son.

Jon curled himself back in the crypt as far as it went, but both Starks were still visible in the guttering flame of his torch. A father and a mother, though neither felt truly his anymore. He squeezed his eyes as tight shut as he could, and focused on his foggy puffs of breath warming his face. Several levels below, he could feel Ghost loping through the old Kings of Winter, curious and lonely. Or perhaps that was him. Or even Rhaegal, somewhere on the surface, awaiting the dawn and keening at the departure from his and Daenerys's nightly visits.

Everything muddled together once again, and Jon let himself drift off with it rather than fight.

Perhaps he was all three: albino wolf, jade dragon, himself aching and exhausted. Then nothing, or just lazy snow spiraling out in the wolfswood, melting on his boiling flesh. Not Snow or a Targaryen. _Not a Stark either_ , the old kings whispered around him. _You don't belong here._ Nor anywhere else, Jon decided as he stumbled through the dark rows of crypts, past the old kings groaning and creaking in their tombs. His paws dug into the hard earth as he raced along.

A man can't be anything when he's only half of something.

 _You don't belong here_.

But the voice wasn't the rasp of wind the old kings always spoke with to him. Jon tripped on his failing torch, his knees slamming into the steel dirt, and found the he was back amongst the crypts of his adopted family. Lord Eddard Stark, stone-faced and firm, gazed down on him.

 _You don't belong here,_ his lord father whispered. _You have our blood, not our name._

"I'm not a Targaryen either! You never taught me to be a dragon!" Jon wanted to shout, but he found his own mouth couldn't move. He made to reach for it, but found his hands were grey and stiff. Stone. His knees were rooted to the frozen ground, his arms heavy like he'd draped a dozen oak shields on each. Only his eyes moved.

His father's judgment was absolute. As shadows molded into figures all around him, and dusty, warm breaths brushed his neck, Jon tried to scream and free himself. Then she stepped forward from the mass of solidifying bodies. Lyanna's face was stone like all the rest, but blood ran down her cheeks where a crown of dead, black roses cut into her head.

Her stone hand caressed Jon's face. He felt nothing of the touch. She turned to Ned as the blood ran down her neck. The old kings swarmed closer.

 _His name is Aegon,_ his mother said, her voice resolute and clear. A fierce buzz of anger hummed around Jon. The dead Kings of Winter drew closer still. Death rattled in their chests. Decay hollowed their eyes to the black pit Jon had met beyond this world before the red woman had dragged him back.

 _His name is Aegon Targaryen._

Jon jolted awake, gagging.

Ghost paced before him, warm and familiar, and hungry. A hunger that flooded Jon's mouth and made his stomach clench. He wretched and came up empty.

"The crypts are an odd place to sleep, even for you."

As Ghost nudged Jon's chest with his saggy, white head, Jon glanced past him. The hall of crypts was brighter than when he'd dozed off. Most of the candles and sconces had been lit. His torch was a charred ruin on the ground. He'd fallen asleep, but for how long, he couldn't say. Time was irrelevant and mindless amongst the dead.

Ned and Lyanna weren't the only Starks watching him now. Arya sat at the foot of Lyanna's statue. It was jarring to see how much his little sister looked like the worn stone carving of his mother.

"Is it morning?"

Arya gave him an uncertain look. "Dawn. She's looking for you."

Jon didn't bother asking whom. _Daenerys._ He'd left her alone on her first night in Winterfell. All the way north, he'd told her about his childhood home; about the crypts and the wolfswood, the steaming pools and the godswood with its vast weirwood tree, the winter town coming to life and the glass gardens. He'd meant to give her a tour of it all after the meeting. Instead he'd dealt with howling lords before stumbled his way down here where he'd hoped to find a sliver of peace.

As guilt surged through him, Arya approached.

"I told her you were down here," Arya said, one hand on the hilt of a dragonbone dagger on her belt. "She said that she didn't want to intrude on a sacred Stark place."

 _Like I am._ A stone hand reached for him, gnarled fingers grasping… _You don't belong here._

"You do belong here. As much as me and Sansa and Bran."

Jon was certain he hadn't spoke, but somehow she knew. Her eyes were colder than he remembered, but it was Arya's warm, thin smile that greeted him. She reached out and mussed up his hair.

"You're still a Stark, big brother. So don't be stupid."

"More so than usual?"

She nodded, and together they returned to the surface, Ghost silent at their heels. Winterfell was just beginning to wake around them. The guards at the main gate were hacking ice off the great wooden doors, and a few people were already at practice in the training yard. Beyond the walls, Jon could hear the camps coming to life. Steady streams of smoke rose from their cook fires. The echoes of Dothraki horses neighing reached him across the pale landscape.

On the bridge between the guest house and the main keep, Daenerys watched it all, wrapped up tight in every article of fur she owned. He'd warned her of that, but she'd insisted she'd be fine.

" _I've got you to warm me all night, Jon Snow. That's more than sufficient."_

Her gentle teases loosen some of the stiffness in his chest. Just the sight of her, red-cheeked and beautiful with her silver-gold hair twisted into half a dozen braids set him at ease. Her Dothraki bells chiming softly as she turned to him.

Arya was watching him when looked away. Her teasing smile wasn't nearly as comforting as Dany's.

"I'll inform Lady Stark that you're available, Your Grace."

Jon glowered at her sparkling gray eyes. "Shut up."

This time, he mussed up her hair and sent her on her way. Ghost trailed after her and Jon was alone. He took the nearest stair up to the bridge.

"You were right," Daenerys said as he joined her overlooking the crisp dawn frosting the yard. Her voice was as soft as the snow flurries falling across the yard. "Winterfell is quite beautiful as the sun rises over the godswood."

Jon eyed the distant weirwood stretching out over the pines and sentinels. Blood red leaves canopied the godswood, little stains of color as the sun crept its way into the sky. He'd promised a tour of that sacred space, promised to walk hand-in-hand with her to the best tower window to see it at dawn. Empty promises were all he'd given. A true son of Eddard Stark would do better than that.

"I apologize, Your Grace. The tour I promised… Yesterday was unexpected."

"It was," she agreed. "We both knew your obligations here would create difficulties as everyone adjusts."

Daenerys turned to him then, a tangled mixture of the queen he'd first met and the woman he'd grown to adore in private. She hesitated to speak, her hand shifting closer to his on the battlement. Jon swallowed at the tentative gestures. Another axe of guilt knocked into his gut. As quick as she'd opened up with him these last few months, Daenerys had already begun to close off, anticipating the worst. He'd given her every reason to expect it, too.

Swift and sure, Jon grasped her hand and threaded their fingers together.

"We're together in this," Jon said. "No matter what happens."

Dany gave him time to pull away as she stepped closer, but then she was in his arms, her head resting against his neck. Jon wrapped his cloak around them both, and his arms tighter around her. Underneath all the fur and armor, Dany's hands found the firm skin of his belly. She rubbed slow circles against the ragged scars.

"Rhaegal was very cross with you last night," she murmured against his neck. "I half expected him to torch the castle until you came out."

"He should scratch his own chin."

"He likes your scratches the best."

But just the thought of the vibrant green dragon—the dragon named after _him—_ made Jon tense. If Dany felt it where her fingertips rubbed his skin, she didn't say anything. For a time, they stayed liked that, drawing a number of eyes from Winterfell's waking inhabitants, but Jon didn't pull away. He sunk into the comfort of her presence, and rested for the first time since Bran had spoken.

" _Eddard Stark is not your father."_

The words plunged into Jon like a cold knife. He held Daenerys tighter as her fingers slipped from under his layers. She kissed his neck, and spoke the only words that could have twisted that aching knife further.

"I'm glad I'm not the last. I'm thankful it's you," Dany said, her voice soft against his neck. "You and I are the last dragons. The last Targaryens, together."

 _I'm not_ , he wanted to say. _To be a Stark was all I ever wanted. Now I'm Targaryen, and I'd rather be anything else._

Joy shined bright in Dany's eyes as she leaned away to looked at him. Jon kissed her forehead, and kept his silence.


	3. DAENERYS

**A/N:** Well, this one took a lot longer than expected. Sorry for the delay!

Life Hack #71: Don't burn three of your fingers because of shitty oven mitts. Typing one-handed is a horrid task. Speech-to-text typing is far worse.

So this is the sixth version of this chapter, and I'm mostly happy with it. Some chapters are harder than others.

Next up is Jon, most likely in the next week or two.

Enjoy!

 **DAENERYS**

Her dreams were full of dragons.

From Drogon's warm back, Dany saw all. Her tiny hatchlings birthed from Drogo's pyre, a swollen red comet chasing her across the black horizon, an enormous wolf aflame with eyes as dark and bold as blood.

 _Ghost,_ she thought, but the wolf's shadow was gone as quick as the rest. Drogon did not stop until Dany's hands were raw and blistered from the fire in his flesh. He landed precariously upon the cracked edge of the Wall. The ice began to weep where his scales touched it.

She climbed down, shivering, calling for Jon, for Tyrion, for her sons, lost and living. For her brothers left years behind. Instead a burst of light blinded her. Drogon roared in warning, but too late. A monstrous pale dragon sheared them in his fire, hot as melting steel and of the brightest blue. The Wall crumbled under her feet. Shards of ice sludged off and Dany fell with them, screaming into the silence heavy on her ears.

Drogon tumbled with her, but when she thudded into the heaps of snow hundreds of feet below, her dragon was gone. The frightening monster Viserion had become had disappeared, too.

"Drogon? Viserion? Jon?"

Nobody answered. Dany stood and looked about her. At once the space behind her burst to life with hues of green. Muddy greens, emeralds, the soft greens of new sprouts shooting up from the earth. A man kneeled upon the banks of a great river, armored all in black.

 _Rhaegar,_ Dany realized. _My valiant brother, Jon's true father._

She ran to him, but he twisted toward her, blood and rubies falling from his smashed chest. His face was Jon's under his helm, long and thin, despite his silver-gold hair and dark indigo eyes. But that could not be right. Her brothers looked very alike, and Jon was nothing like Viserys's image. Dany stopped before she reached him. Then whirled about as a shrill voice scolded her.

"I am the dragon, the dragon who's crown you stole!"

Viserys's nails dug into her forearm, yanking her hard, his eyes brightest blue, a wild snarl on his lips. His face, too, was wrong. Not feeble-chinned and angular, but long and thin—Jon's face but not his calm, comforting eyes.

"You turned against me, sweet sister. Against your own blood, the last dragon. You've woken the dragon for the final time!"

He raised his free hand to hit her, and her knees shook as if she was half the girl she'd been before the Dothraki. Before she'd been sold or become a queen.

"You are no dragon," Dany whispered and Viserys turned to ash before her. Like smoke in a strong wind, he vanished into the pink dawn on the horizon. "And I am not the last."

The sun rose, a flaming orange curve, and suddenly a large house was before her. Lemons splattered the cobblestones around her bare feet. A warm breeze ruffled her cloak, and sweetness filled the air, but Dany hesitated at the red door. Her dreams held her captive here near every night. Her house with the red door was more fantasy than truth anymore; a place half-built from lingering, faint memories and youthful dreams she'd invented.

 _If I look back, I am lost_ , she reminded herself. _Nothing is here for me._

But it was not Ser Willem who called to her from the house, nor Viserys when he'd been kind and gentle.

"Dany?"

Jon's rough accent echoed from the open window. A gentle squeal followed. She rushed for the door, and pushed it open. Jon awaited her, a dark-haired babe cradled in his arms. His soft smile, the warm strength of his embrace, his understanding and gentle heart welcomed her. Their child pressed his newborn face to her heart.

 _Are you my red door, Jon Snow?_

She woke with a start. Jon was thrashing and tangled in the furs beside her. Dany rubbed her eyes and peered about the room. A bed large enough for three, a small solar table, a hearth now dim and cold, and a great copper tub in the corner. Her Winterfell accommodations were sparse as Jon had warned, but quite cozy when she had him to share the flagged stone room. Except for their own torments.

Between the two of them, an uninterrupted night's sleep was a rarity. If her own vast, prophetic nightmares didn't plague her awake, then Jon's startled him upright.

Jon moaned in his sleep beside her. He'd been a shadow of himself since their arrival at Winterfell two days past. In rare moments, his gaze frightened her more than her lost brother ever had.

She rubbed Jon's back, watched his jaw clench and the tendons in his neck strain under his flushed skin. He would wake on his own soon enough, as hollow and silent as his direwolf. For two days, Dany had left him to his thoughts in the few hours they managed together. Instead, they fucked until they both collapsed into a hazy, pleasant sleep. Jon had said no word about Brandon Stark's revelation. Not while awake, at least, but in sleep…

Jon jerked and rolled toward her, muttering through clenched teeth. "I'm not, no, I'm not, I'm not. I'm _not_."

Dany had ideas of what that was about, too.

 _Waking nightmares are perhaps crueler._ And Jon's followed him in every breath and second now.

He woke then, bolting upright, his mouth open like he meant to scream. But Jon was silent except for the heaving of his lungs.

"Jon?"

His eyes darted to her. All he managed was a firm shake of his head. Sweat beaded his brows and ran from his thick curls down his tense back muscles. Dany slid behind him on her knees and wrapped him in hers arms. One tight around his scarred waist, the other hooking under his arm, her hand curving up to his shoulder. She rested her chin there, pressed a soft kiss to his neck. As a pale gray-pink dawn lit the dust motes spiraling in the air, Jon settled into her embrace.

Jon was splintering. Fissures cracked to life in his dark gray eyes, his words and jaw hardened. Try as he might to seal himself shut, he could not. One by one, the fractures took him deeper into his torment. She could see it. Around the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. In his stiff tones amongst the shouting northern lords as he cowed them to silence. Jon wore his kingly facade as well as Dany had ever worn her own, but a hollowness filled up all the space his smiles and laughs had. Despite her patience, Jon kept his face even with her. In the moments when he couldn't, he kept his silence instead.

"You can't keep this inside forever," Dany said finally. "You'll drive yourself mad if you do. Talk to me, Jon. Whatever you can manage, whatever you're thinking, please, let me bear it with you. _Together_ was what we promised, remember?"

But it was a hard truth for Jon to face, and one Dany could only make clumsy grasps for. That first night, Dany's joy had outweighed all else. She'd skipped right over Jon's apparent claim, and ignored Tyrion's worries about muddled politics. For a time, Jon's distress has escaped her, too, with his absence.

Jon was her blood. A Targaryen long hidden, but kept safe with a lie. But her own happiness had dimmed in the shadow of Jon's stiff silence the next morning. He'd spent his first night home in the crypts beneath the castle, alone. Ghost had tried to lead her to him, but Arya Stark had had to retrieve him from that sacred Stark place instead.

 _Jon's ancestors, his mother's, too. And Ned Stark's resting place. The man he's always thought of as his father._

He was her brother's seed, though. Dany felt that truth as sure as she felt her own heartbeat. Jon was Rhaegar's son, even if he bore no resemblance to her family.

 _Our family. He's a Targaryen by blood and name, even if he never calls himself it._

Dany suspected he wouldn't. His name had been Jon Snow for far too long to claim himself as someone new. The very thought of calling him Aegon made her stomach wriggle like a feather tickling her nose.

He was Jon. Her Jon Snow, always.

His eyes flickered to the ceiling, her face, then to some cold place before him that she could not reach. Once before she'd seen that look when Jon had spoken of his death at Castle Black. It was a ghastly, haunted expression, one that made her lungs ache with cold and her skin prickle. One that spoke of the nothingness beyond this life and the dark craving that festered in him—the longing to sink right back into death's hollow embrace. A chill ran down her spine.

 _I will not lose you. Not to death nor to yourself, not when I've only just found you._

"I can't make it stop," he said. "All day, they go on and on about it, and my dreams are worse. I can't think or find a way past it…" Jon's voice cracked like lightning splitting stone. "Nothing makes it quiet, Dany. Not even you."

Jon shook his head, and climbed from their bed. He said no more, no matter how she pressed him. A warm trickle of anger ran through her as they bathed and dressed, but she held her tongue.

 _He needs time. And my patience, though he riles me like no other. Jon needs me, and I must be strength enough for us both._

"I'm going to keep my name," Jon said as he tied the last of her Dothraki bells to her braids.

"Of course."

"I'm going to remain Jon Snow." But something razor sharp lingered in those words. He pecked her on the lips and set his shoulders as she pulled his cloak around him. "I'm Jon Snow. That's all I've ever been."

Jon tied his cloak's straps into place around his chest, and Dany caught sight of it again. That void burrowing into his gaze—a bitterness that's roots seemed to sprout a dozen new gnarled branches every time she saw it.

"You've always been more than a name, Jon."

Even as he nodded his eyes closed off like iron-studded doors.

She thought then of Tyrion's sage words that had first introduced her to Jon Snow half a year ago. On Dragonstone, amongst a fearful, bitter storm Tyrion had been brief, but certain.

"Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it," Tyrion had explained with a cup of wine in hand. "Jon Snow is not most men. He's too much his father's son for that."

 _Ned Stark's son, though, not Rhaegar's._

If Brandon Stark's revelation had provided her with any sort of clarity, it was how little she understood Jon's life-long desperation to be his father's true son. Loving a parent at all, knowing how it felt to have one, was a foreign idea to her. Her mother had died birthing her, her father had lost himself to madness long before, and Viserys had been half brother, half torment. But Ned Stark…

Eddard Stark was a man known for his honor, a man Jon loved and had strived to be like all his life. Who'd marked Jon as his baseborn bastard so the realm thought him treacherous by nature, untrustworthy, and unfit to lead. His lie had saved Jon's life, but the truth of his falsehood might devour Jon from the inside out.

Helplessness filled her belly. Every instinct yearned to share her joy, to enfold Jon in his newfound Targaryen heritage. Their shared blood could soothe his pains, his confusion and hurt. Together, they would see this through. Another Targaryen walked the earth, his blood as deep and true as the dragons she'd birthed. She wasn't alone anymore. Neither was Jon.

She tried again.

"Will you come see Drogon and Rhaegal with me before the meeting?"

Jon shook his head. "I need to meet with Davos and Sansa. Gods knows, she'll try to undermine me for half the meeting if I don't tell her everything beforehand."

Dany accepted his excuse and his kiss, but she bristled as he left.

" _Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it."_

Yet Jon refused to even speak of it.

Alone, Dany set out for the snowy moors beyond the castles. Northern camps ringed the curtain wall to the east and north. Her own troops were spread out to the south in two starkly different camps. Dothraki tents dotted the snow like a handful of tossed pebbles. Her Unsullied had set up in uniform lines, edging toward the hills her sons had chosen for their nest.

She headed toward their bright, hazy flames fogging the sky. Most of the northern folks she passed in the bustling winter town whispered and stared as she went by, but Dany ignored them in favor of joining her childish sons. Since arriving in the North, her dragons had taken to belching flames at whatever passed overhead. Ravens, crows, even low-slung storm clouds. They'd discovered a new amusement, making a contest of who could collect the most carnage or spurt their flame the highest.

A murder of crows screamed above her, flapping for the wolfswood to escape their brethren's fiery fate. Several were aflame and shrieking. One plummeted to the ground nearby, leaving a smoking hole in the snow. The crow was dead when Dany found it, its feathers crisp and ashen.

 _These sons of mine and their games_.

When they'd first arrived at White Harbor, Dany had worried how her dragons would adjust to the new climate. They'd spent their entire lives in the stiff desert air. Cradled in her arms, they'd survived the red waste as hatchlings, then grown to maturation in Meereen's dusty heat. None of them were familiar with the cold, not even her. Yet Drogon and Rhaegal almost seemed to enjoy the frigid winds and swirling snowflakes that melted on their boiling scales.

The pair were lazing on their bellies when she found them. They'd made a wide charred nest nestled between a trio of small hills. Mud squelched under her boots as she descended to them. Together, they belched their unique flames toward the overcast sky, but the crows had wised up. Most had deserted the area, but those left taunted Drogon and Rhaegal, soaring just  
out of their reach. Drogon's dreadful black flame shot with red crisped the air until her skin felt scorched and cracked. Rhaegal's wasn't as hot, but his fire had an iridescent beauty to it, orange-yellow and veined with vibrant green.

Charred crows littered the ground around them. Dany toed at one as her dragons shrieked their annoyance at the crows screaming down at them. As Drogon took a savage bite of one near his wing, she scratched behind his horns. Rhaegal crooned at her, using his wing claws to pull himself closer.

"Are you having fun today?"

He sniffed around her, his bronze eyes alight at the whiffs of Jon's scent still lingering on her skin and clothes.

"No, sweet, Jon's in the castle still." Dany scratched Drogon's favorite spot right between his neck spines, and reached her other hand toward Rhaegal. "Jon's very busy, Rhaegal. Tomorrow perhaps."

Rhaegal told her what he thought of that with a thick huff of smoke to her face. As she coughed, he took flight. He wheeled across the clearing twice, shrieking and belching flame at the clouds. His cries for his lost brother rattled inside her as he passed over Winterfell and disappeared into the gloom of the wolfswood.

Drogon offered a throaty snarl and spat up a burnt crow skull.

"Jon understands him," Dany reminded her dragon. "They've both lost brothers they cared for deeply."

Drogon shut his fiery eyes and wrapped his neck around her as she scratched him. His presence was a comfort, but Rhaegal's distant calls as he flew over the wolfswood and the castle made her chest burn. As Jon shut her out, so too had he shut out Rhaegal. Somehow, that irked her more.

Of late, Rhaegal had been unruly and distant as he mourned Viserion. He was lost as he'd never been before, and nothing she'd done soothed him. Not until she'd introduced him to Jon. From Jon's first touch, Rhaegal's moods had softened, his confusion and fear melting to calm fits of confidence.

No person, besides herself, approached her dragons with such ease. No man held his ground with Drogon's massive bulk snarling and bearing his fangs. Except Jon.

Jon offered respect rather than fear. He didn't turn and run nor pretend he was superior. Her lover came to her dragons with no expectations. Rhaegal had appreciated that, despite his feigned disinterest. The first night Jon joined her on the melted snowdrift where the two dragons  
nested, Rhaegal had watched him balefully—then given him a rough swat with his scaly tail when Dany had looked away. Both dragons had screeched their mirth at the sight of Jon on his ass in the mud. Their amusement had hummed through Dany's gut.

"Your son's an ass," Jon had grumbled, but he'd gotten back to his feet as fearless as ever. Drogon had huffed a cloud of dark smoke into his face, but rumbled in contentment at the firm scratch of Jon's fingers on his jaw. "Gods, you're worse than Ghost."

Drogon's tail had swiped him halfway across the hilltop for that comparison. Dany had watched him roll down the hill, chasing after him, her laughter carefree and loud.

They were rougher with Jon, but still affectionate. Jon was half a brother to them, never a replacement for Viserion, but a solace in this strange, frozen land. Her sons had recognized a part of Jon that nobody else had ever noticed.

 _Dragon's blood,_ Dany thought as she leaned against Drogon's warm scales and closed her eyes. _They knew him before I ever did._

Overhead, Rhaegal soared the skies alone, a frothing wound as his cries echoed across the endless pale moors. He called for Viserion still; for Jon now, too. His lost brother haunted him, just as her sweetest dragon's fate did her. Jon had held her the night they'd taken the raven at White Harbor. He'd gathered her into his arms with all her anguish and fury, kept her grounded and warm until dawn broke across the horizon.

"He needs the same," Dany told Drogon as she scratched his jaw. "But he won't let me. Or perhaps he won't let himself. Is more time really going to help?"

Drogon snorted and crooned softly, the ground quivering with his throaty purr. Dany left once he was asleep. Rhaegal still flew high overhead, but he'd gone as silent as Jon.

Their second meeting with the lords and ladies went better than the first. A few still grumbled and frowned around the room, but the majority had calmed. Jon announced his intentions to keep his name, as he'd told her he'd do—then extended that to deny his claims and titles by birth as well.

"I'm as much a Stark now as I was before," Jon told the quiet hall. "But who continues to lead the North is your decision, not mine, and not a name."

Every northern leader pledged to him as they had before. The pronouncements made quite a show as one lord after another roared approval and oaths and chants echoed back and forth. Dany kept her face during the meeting, but inside she bristled again.

 _You're a Targaryen, too. Do you dare to deny it?_

At first, hearing Jon was actually her nephew had been a wondrous shock. However, Brandon Stark's insistence that he was the rightful heir had made her feel more like Drogon than a woman. With spikes and scarlet spines rising on her back, and molten breath expanding in her chest, but her joy had pushed it aside. Her claim was just as strong—should not be denied because she was a woman. Her father, terrible as he'd been, was the last dragonking to sit the throne. By rights, it was hers first since Jon was his grandson just discovered. By rights, Viserys had been crowned, and then named her his heir.

But Jon denying every aspect of his claim and titles and heritage cut like Valyrian steel.

He retired to her chambers early that night, but his brooding silence persisted. Dany sunk into a broiling bath to warm herself, watching Jon seated on the fur rug by the hearth. As he stoked the fire, Dany bristled in her copper tub.

 _Time is all he needs,_ Dany reminded her temper. _Tonight's his first real chance to rest and sort his heart out amongst all this suddenness. To have a few hours to relax and think._

Even in her own mind, Dany found herself unconvincing.

Jon's father was not his father. His life had been founded upon a necessary lie. Ned Stark had risked everything to protect his nephew, and the knowledge had cracked Jon like an egg clutched in her fist.

Time was all he needed. Yet time was fleeing their grasp.

 _What was the purpose of telling him now? Of ripping up the foundation Jon had built his entire life on?_

Now, of all times, Jon needed to be steady. A warrior sure of sword and mind, prepared to face their greatest threat. Instead he was half drown in silent grief, his eyes ragged with a savage devastation that took more of him away every hour.

Jon might stay silent forever, but she could not.

"Jon?"

She called his name thrice before he pulled his attention back to the room. And that annoyed her, too, try as she might to quench the feeling. Patience was necessary, but hers had turned paper-thin. Jon joined her at the tub, barefoot, only in his breeches and undertunic. He kneeled behind her, his hands kneading her shoulders.

"Can I have my way with you now?"

His presumption riled Dany even more. Sex and sleeping was all they'd done since arriving at Winterfell. No matter how much she enjoyed his body, it could not be his shield forever. She shrugged his mouth away from her neck and turned to stare at him.

"What?"

Just trying to find a beginning amongst all her jumbled thoughts proved difficult. Jon leaned away, resting his forearms on the tub's rim.

"Have I done something?" At her continued silence, Jon's jaw went stiff, his eyes shifting like prey on alert. "Dany, tell me."

" _Tell you?_ "

Dany rose from the tub, showering the stone floor with water. A chill settled into her flushed skin as she stepped out and snatched up her towel.

"Dany, whatever it is—"

"I should _tell you?_ The same way you've been telling me how you're feeling? Or how to help you? Or what you need besides fucking me half the night? Like how you consulted me beforehand about denouncing every title and claim you have?"

Jon's face went to stone. "I told you I was keeping my name," he said stiffly as he stood. "That includes everything that goes with it. I'm not a Targaryen, no matter what the truth is."

Dany stared at him, her chest tight with the coldness seeping down to her bones.

 _I am not the last, Jon Snow. We're together in this, in everything._

"You're not a Stark either, by that logic," Dany told him. "Yet you had no problems claiming such before your lords earlier."

"That's different." A bite crept into his words. "I was raised by a Stark, with Stark siblings. Winterfell was never a true home, I admit it, not with Lady Catelyn around, but I learned to be a Stark, just the same as Robb. It's all I've ever known. It's everything I am."

"It's _not_. You are a dragon, the same as me. Do you know how incredible that is for me? You were _born_ a Targaryen."

Jon's entire expression darkened. His eyes dimmed, his jaw went rigid, the muscles bunching under his beard.

"For a few hours, perhaps. One sentence spoken by a woman long dead does not change who I am. I was born to Lyanna Stark, aye, and she entrusted my life to a Stark. Her brother is my father. Not yours."

As Jon began to pull his boots and armor on, a jab of guilt wedged itself between Dany's ribs. Her anger still simmered, but she'd pushed too much, too fast.

" _Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it."_

Tyrion had insisted, and on this mark, Dany had never expected him to be wrong.

"Jon, you can't deny this. The entire North knows. If Lord Varys is right, the rest of the realm will before long. Proof or not, claim or not, you are my blood. Even if you don't take the name your mother gave you, you are still Rhaegar's seed. His heir." She took a deep breath to calm the fury sludging through her veins. "I know this is hard for you, but closing yourself off from me isn't going to help. Ned Stark is not—"

"I would rather be Ned Stark's bastard a thousand times over, than to ever be your brother's trueborn son."

Jon's sour, hateful look cut right through her. He belted his sword around his hips, the white wolf's ruby eyes glinting in the firelight.

"I am _not_ a Targaryen. And no, I'm not a Stark either. I'm a Snow, a bloody bastard. That's all I've ever been good for, and it is _all_ I will ever be, Your Grace."

The fire sputtered when he slammed the door.

Dany stood by the tub, still dripping from her bath. She trembled from the cold and her own seething anger.

 _We are all that's left, Jon Snow, and you will not shut me out._


	4. JON II

**A/N:** This one took far longer than expected. My bad, kids, my bad, I'm sorry. Forgive me! Going back and rewriting this from other POVs had proven more difficult than I'd anticipated.

That said, I'm not sure when the last part will be up. It'll be Dany's POV, for sure, but I don't know when yet.

I'm also going to preface this chapter with this: I'm not the biggest fan of the romanticizing of Rhaegar and Lyanna that the show is giving us. I think there's a LOT more to the story than them simply being in love and that somehow magically explaining their choices and responsibilities away. That seems to be what the show is going for. They have a tendency, especially in recent seasons, to ignore politics/the political ramifications of decisions (Cersei blowing up the Sept and the people's beloved Queen Margaery, for instance)/rewrite the books' political plotlines (looking at you, post-Red Wedding northern plots), but I'm not going to do that. I think it pushes the story, and more so Jon's potential reactions to R+L=J to close to the fantasy trope that GRRM is trying to deconstruct. He's looking to examine the reality of it, on multiple levels, and the show (at least at this point) isn't.

Anyway, here's Jon! Enjoy :)

 **JON**

Hack, spin, stab, dodge.

Jon pivoted to the left, Longclaw singing as it kissed Tormund's axe. The Valyrian steel seemed to vibrate in the frosty dawn air. Their weapons clashed together once, twice, thrice. Tormund grunted and pressed forward. A wild grin lit his face as he used his greater strength and weight to test Jon's stance. All night he'd pushed Jon to his limits, matching him step for step, cut for cut. Both men were bleeding from scrapes and bloodied, fat lips. More than once they'd lost their weapons and resorted to fists, but the wildling was fierce and faithful. He'd seen Jon through another sleepless night in the yard without question.

Unfortunately, Tormund's mouth sang as much as their blades.

"Har, what's your little dragon queen think of you keeping warm with me all night?"

A haze of anger coiled tighter than a noose in Jon's chest. He'd been heavy with fury since he'd stormed from Daenerys's chambers, like a charcoal thundercloud seething across the sky. Just a mention of Daenerys ignited his temper. Jon used the sureness of Longclaw's dragonsteel to push back, driving Tormund across the yard in a quick series of blows.

The wildling was fast, Jon would give him that. His style was loose, but full of an unpredictability that spoke of little training but years of learning by doing. The free folk fought to live, not to win blushing maidens at tourneys. Tormund twisted out of reach.

"You've got me slick as a baby seal," Tormund said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "She won't like that, unless she wants me member instead of yours."

Jon grit his teeth. "She doesn't."

Or she might now, for all he knew. They'd fought in her chambers three nights past, and Jon had seen little of her since. Tormund had done his best to rattle a confession from Jon, but Jon had no words to offer.

Right when half of Westeros was looking to him for guidance and safety through a winter that might never end, the very fabric of his own existence had been burned away before his eyes. Nobody seemed to understand that. Not Sansa, not Arya. Not Tormund or Sam or Tyrion. Not even Daenerys. More pressure wouldn't press him into a diamond, only crack open chasm after chasm inside him.

 _I am shield that guards the realms of men. There's no time for anything else. I cannot be anything else._

Anger sustained him. Not sleep nor food nor the comfort of Daenerys's body tucked up against his. Not even his siblings. Bran had been adamant that Jon had never been a bastard, but Jon could think of himself as nothing else.

His vision went dark for an instant, as his father's face shivered before him in the windy training yard. Long, solemn, guarded and melancholy like his own. They shared the Stark features, and the gray eyes, too, but the man had never shared the truth with him.

Tormund's axe twirled through the air, and Jon met it. Longclaw sliced sideways and the illusion dissolved.

Perhaps he had never meant to tell him.

Perhaps Ned Stark had been content to sell the lie of fathering a bastard for the rest of his days. Maybe he'd decided to leave his nephew in the dark where it was lonely and safe. To send him to the Wall and be rid of him.

Whatever the truth, he'd taken it all to the nothingness beyond this world that gnawed at Jon's limbs and face every time he shut his eyes. Death was under his skin like a colony of ants, like tiny shards of ice, burning cold.

"You're getting slow, Jon Snow," Tormund said, stabbing left, right, and right again. Jon met the strikes clumsily. It felt like someone had exchanged his muscles for stones. He'd not slept in three days. "I'll send you back to them damn crows if you can't keep up."

 _Did you send me to the Wall to protect me or to let your promise finally die?_

The edges of his vision seemed to burn and waver. Tormund's ginger hair faded to brown, his bearded face stretched longer, his bright eyes dulled to gray.

Jon threw himself forward, Longclaw a whirl of dark steel in his hands. Slashing, striking, twisting from his burned right hand to his left, not still nor silent. Tormund was on the ground before Jon realized it, his axe splattering mud as Longclaw swiping the weapon from the wildling's hands.

Tormund wiped at the cut on his throat.

"That's more like it, Snow."

Exhaustion hammered into Jon like a giant sitting on his shoulders. As quick as his temper had boiled, it fled him like a gush of steam. Jon wobbled on his feet, his blade sinking into the mud as he tried to keep himself upright.

"Snow?"

Jon stumbled to his knees. His head swam. The world was black around him, now stark white, then a dagger dove for him, aiming for his heart.

"No, stop, no, not again."

He batted it away, his eyelids drooping, then batted a second aside. The dagger caught his wrist like the grasp of someone's hand. Around him the training yard had faded to a slate gray sludge of dirty snow and flickering faces. Tormund, Arya, Davos, Brienne.

Jon lurched to his feet, and tried to shake the feverish feeling from his skin. Someone's firm grip on his arm held him up. A hand with shortened fingers. _Davos._

"Your Grace?"

The old smuggler's eyes swirled before Jon, like two melty pools on the leaf strewn floor of the godswood. First green, then brown, then black and dead. As Davos came back into focus, a second pair of hands supported his other arm. The world became a series of waves—a flash of fire, a dark stone corridor, Arya's face dancing past, first pale then black. Warmth hit Jon's face as he was forced onto his back.

 _A bed,_ Jon realized as Davos, Arya, and Brienne shifted above him. _The wrong bed. Mine, alone._

Sam appeared, his round face as blurry as the others. He tipped something into Jon's mouth. A chalky taste bit into his tongue, thick and clotted, before he passed out.

Wolf dreams kept Jon adrift. Icy snow crusts crunched under his paws. Fresh pine needles thatched the pale drifts as snow fell around him. He tasted blood, the scent pungent and full in his mouth. Fleeing into the heart of the forest away from the charred tree flesh and the ashes mixing with the cold snowflakes. He started forward to pursue, until a tremendous roar spurred him back.

A bold green dragon watched him through the gray-white gloom. Smoking trees surrounded him, some fallen at his side, as tendrils of steam rose from his scales. His lips peeled back in a snarl, bronze eyes meeting red.

He was a wolf, now a dragon. Gazing at one and then the other, never seeing what he was.

When he woke, Jon found Davos sitting by the glowing fire in his chamber, shuffling through scrolls while Ghost dozed on the rug at his feet. Davos squinted over at him through the streams of bright sunlight. Mid-day perhaps, but Jon couldn't be sure anymore. Every day grew shorter as winter deepened.

"We were starting to wonder if you'd wake at all."

He left off the titles and courtesies, and Jon was grateful. For the last week, he'd been called half a dozen different ones. Lord Snow, King Aegon, Lord Targaryen, King Jon, Lord Stark. Most everyone stuttered through the meandering list before skipping over them entirely. Not one of them felt true.

Nobody met his eye for more than an instant. Each person looked away in a hurry, embarrassed to be caught staring. Even Dany's gaze had changed when they were too quiet. Lights danced in her violet eyes. A happiness so radiant it only deepened the ache festering inside himself. Her joy only made it harder to forget.

Only when they were together, bodies finding pleasure as one, were Dany's eyes his again. She looked at him as Jon then. They had no names or titles in those brief, dark hours. Alone together, they were two people in love, expressing it as people always had. Those were his favorite moments. Smiles that sunk him into some form of relief, that chased away the cacophony ricocheting inside his head. A few moments of respite was all he kept grasping for. A safe place to reclaim himself—a home.

Where he could recall how he'd been Jon Snow and never anything more.

"How late is it?" Jon asked Davos.

He sat up, wincing at the aches and sore muscles from sleeping in his armor. His neck cracked like splintering wood. Davos set aside the scroll he was mouthing along with and gave Jon a long, hard inspection.

"Supper starts in a few hours. Ser Jaime has asked for a spar, when you're available. Her Grace requested you dine with her in her chambers last night, but you slept right through. She's asked for your presence tonight as well."

Over a full day of sleep. The weight of it hung drowsy on his eyelids and his cracked, parched lips. He thought of Daenerys then, simmering with anger he'd caused, awaiting him as was their norm, but to no end. Jon hadn't spent a night with her since their fight.

"No."

"She was quite insistent," Davos said. At Jon's silence, he relented. "Perhaps a quiet supper here then. You might offend Her Grace in your present state."

"Present state?"

"You haven't change out of those clothes in four days, your hair's closer to a bird's nest than a style befitting a king, and you smell like a stable that hasn't been mucked in a moon's turn."

Jon sniffed the air and grimaced.

"Your honest observation is appreciated as always, Davos."

"Of course, Your Grace."

"I'm not king anymore."

"Begging your pardon, but the north has yet to acknowledge Her Grace as their queen," Davos reminded him. "They pledged themselves to you, once again. Whether you bent the knee or not hardly seems to matter. Regardless of that, you'll be a king again once you two wed."

 _If Dany will still have me._

Jon took in Davos's easy expression.

"You aren't shaken by a damn bit of this, are you?"

Davos's smile made his eyes crinkle. "I watched your naked ass come back from the dead, Your Grace. Finding out your father hid that you've been a trueborn Targaryen since birth isn't a fraction so exciting."

 _Your father._

Jon swallowed and turned away from the gentle understanding he found in Davos's eyes. Of everyone at Winterfell, Davos Seaworth was the sole person who treated him exactly as he had a fortnight ago. It was a comfort Jon hadn't realized he'd needed until that moment. No matter the continuous elevation of his own titles, Davos always treated him the same. Like a son of his own. Like Ned Stark always had.

"Davos, I will always be grateful for how completely unimpressed you by almost everything."

"When you've gone from a smuggler to a King's Hand, you learn to expect nothing but absurdity." Davos finished his last scroll and stood. "Last Hearth's subjects are heading south as planned, Karhold is set to depart at the first night of the full moon. We've had no word on the Night King's movements since the last."

Jon nodded and ruffled his mess of hair. His curls were oily with grime and sweat, the hairs clinging to his fingers.

"And if I might, Your Grace..." Davos was hesitant when Jon looked up at him. "Talk to her. The pair of you need to be strong, together. Everything rests on what you two make of all this."

Dany's open smile and loving eyes came to life in his mind, as radiant as the summer sun and twice as warm. He'd left her alone in Winterfell once again. After all of his promises and plans heading north, he'd turned it all aside in his anger. No matter what had been said or meant, he'd turned her away. He'd hurt her to try to stop hurting himself. His anger at his father, at the lies and the secrets and the very falsehood of his existence, had all been turned on her. Instead of asking Daenerys for one night of only silence and comfort, he'd struck with words and fury and a tornadic spiral of pain he didn't know how to control.

Guilt settled thick and frothing in his gut. Every strike of anger in him stayed quiet then. For the first time in a week, his mind felt light and clear.

 _I truly am a bloody bastard._

"Tell the queen I'll dine with her tonight, if she is still willing," Jon decided. "And have a—"

"Bath sent up." Davos gave a nod of approval before he smiled. "Stark, Targaryen, or Snow, it's you she loves. Whether there's time for it or not."

Jon glowered at him. "You've going to hold that over me forever, aren't you?"

"If given the chance, I hope to tell your sons and daughters the tale many times, Your Grace."

 _She cannot give me that, no matter how she longs for the same._

Jon couldn't bring himself to say it, despite his own uncertainties regarding Daenerys's claims of barrenness. Now wasn't the time for that conversation, not with the Wall breached. Now wasn't the time for any of this.

Jon bathed and dressed, exchanging his armor for a dark leather doublet with no discernible sigils or ornamentations. Few of his clothes held the Stark sigil, despite being crowned king by his Stark blood. As a bastard, he'd still felt somehow wrong to take that sigil for himself. Now it felt even more false.

He arrived at Daenerys's chambers to find Tyrion seated beside her. Some of his hope deflated then. The youngest Lannister looked far more uncomfortable than he usually was with a chalice of wine set before him. Daenerys, however, was resplendent in one of her long promised Meereenese silk gowns. Taunting him, Jon knew at once, his eyes taking in every inch of pale, soft flesh. He'd kissed and licked and bit every spot visible, and more so every place that wasn't.

"I'm glad you've made time to join us, my lord. Please, sit."

Somehow, their supper, already starting at ground level, managed to sink lower. As Tyrion called for more and more wine in an attempt to drown himself, their frigid, formal talks began. The Wall, army arrangements, news from farther north, reports from their southern scouts in case Cersei's betrayal became a secondary war. Little had changed since their last talk on such matters. Instead, Jon tried to assess just how far he'd driven her away, but she was as unreadable as ever. By the time a servant brought out the dessert, a simple lemon tart, Tyrion was drunk but Daenerys watched him keenly.

Tonight he'd get nowhere, especially with another person beside her. He could accept the guard against a personal conversation—Tyrion clearly understood his task in this presumed amicable supper—but the lifeless eyes that hid Dany from him were harder to swallow. Jon might never see her again. The truth of his blood, and his choices regarding it, might end the fragile life they'd begun creating.

The Queen set her fork aside. "Lord Tyrion, if you would."

The dwarf grimaced, but shuffled dutifully over to the writing desk . He returned with a sheaf of parchment.

"I've taken the liberty of having an order of legitimization drawn up," the Queen said, her voice clipped and toneless. "Henceforth, you will be Rhaegar's acknowledged trueborn son, and a Targaryen by name. The choice of Jon or Aegon will remain yours."

Coldness swept through Jon. Tyrion handed him the document, but he couldn't even stomach reading it. Hurting Daenerys had not been his intention, not truly. He'd been selfishly blinded by his own tumult of pain, but this…

"If you'll sign at the bottom, we can fix _our_ seal to it."

She brought a small wedge of red wax from her lap, set it in a dish, and let it heat over a candle. When she offered him a quill, Jon shoved himself from the table. His chair clattered to the floor. Nothing in her gaze offered sympathy to the pang churning from dull to sharp in his gut. Both Tyrion and the Queen watched him. Jon turned to the hearth roaring behind him, the parchment clutched in his fist.

"You are Rhaegar's heir, a Prince of Dragonstone. His trueborn son."

Thunder seemed to hammer through Jon's skull. His ears throbbed, his chest felt numb. Dany would never force such a thing on him, he'd thought, but he wasn't dealing with Dany in that instant. He wasn't even dining with Daenerys. She was a queen making demands, and a hurt lover second.

 _I am Ned Stark's son._

Jon crumpled the parchment and cast it into the fire.

* * *

At dawn, Ser Jaime joined Jon in the training yard. The knight and former commander of the kingsguard was still a worthy opponent, but not as formidable as he'd once been with two hands. Jon found the conversation more worthwhile than the spar—at first. Discussions of commanding their forces, battle tactics, swordplay, and ongoing preparations for a siege and training new recruits was easy. Until Ser Jaime brought up the one person Jon never wanted to talk about again.

"I knew him," Jaime told him, as they rested between bouts. He readjusted the straps on his golden hand, his eyes thoughtful and steady as they met Jon's. "Rhaegar. Briefly, but he was a good man as far as I saw. The last time I saw him in King's Landing—"

"That's enough for today, Ser Jaime," Jon said stiffly. He sheathed Longclaw at his hip and offered the knight his left hand to shake. "Perhaps on the morrow, we can practice again. Presently, I have other matters to attend to, if you'll excuse me."

Jon grabbed his fur cloak from the peg where he'd hung it and headed for Winterfell's western gate. Before him the wolfswood stretched out like pale daggers aimed for the sky. Ghost found him just as he passed under the first line of sentinels. Light snow fell around them, soft and silent and glowing in the dim light of the morning. The white direwolf nudged at his hand, gave his glove a quick lick, and then took off into the deep snowdrifts. As Ghost flung himself into the nearest, disappearing in a powdery cloud, a burning ache swelled in Jon's throat.

Rhaegal was near. He could taste the ash and flame in his mouth. His brow was soon freckled with beads of sweat, even as Ghost rolled about in the fresh snow.

"Ghost, to me."

Together, they continued into the wood, the trees growing taller and denser around them. Soon Winterfell was lost in the white landscape behind them, but ahead the air was hazy with heat. Icy, then hot, then a flood of ash and then the sharp tang of blood on his tongue. For every hint of Ghost's contentment, slipping closer to Rhaegal brought a wave of longing and despair. The constant switch between the two made Jon dizzy.

At the edge of Rhaegal's new-made clearing, Ghost stopped. He began to pace anxiously, ever silent, but fearful all the same.

"Stay here," Jon told him.

The direwolf seemed more than happy to obey.

Jon stepped into the charred clearing alone. Around him, trees had been ripped from the ground, their roots clawing at the sky like spider legs. Most were burnt black, their ashes darkening the air. Rhaegal snarled, raising his head from his wing. His bronze eyes turned dark, his pupils widening as Jon approached. They'd never been alone before, not without Drogon or Dany.

"Hello, Rhaegal."

" _Don't show them fear," Dany had told him that first night after White Harbor. "Your fear becomes theirs, and then their fury."_

Jon pulled his gloves off, and offered the green dragon his palm. Instead of sniffing him, Rhaegal gave him a long look, then turned his head skyward. An enormous belch of fire screamed to the clouds. Jon ducked as the heat blazed across his skin. The air seemed to boil around him for an instant, so hot he felt like he was suffocating. As quick as it came, Rhaegal stopped.

"You're mad at me, too, then. I deserve it, I know."

The dragon's withering look said enough. Rhaegal rose up on his claws, and turned his spiky tail to Jon. With a crash, he dropped back to the ground, and feinted sleep.

Without turning around, Jon knew Ghost had run. He circled to Rhaegal's head, but again, the dragon turned from him. The sight almost made Jon laugh. Arya had been the same when they were small. With every hurt or tease that had made her mad, she'd pretended to ignore him until he begged forgiveness.

"I'm sorry, Rhaegal."

But still, the dragon shunned him. Jon reached for his neck, and Rhaegal gave a warning hiss.

"Rhaegal—"

This time, Rhaegal's roar wasn't full of flame, but it knocked Jon back a step all the same. His wings lifted, his neck uncoiling as his pupils narrowed to slits.

 _A dragon's temper isn't Arya's_.

As Rhaegal's wings swooped down, Jon was lifted into the air from the wind force. He hurtled backward, slammed into a tree, unconscious.

* * *

By the time Jon woke, the sun was low in the sky and half a foot of snow had fallen. His vision was fuzzy, scattered with snowflakes and ash, flickering from the ruby glow of the sunset and the shifting mass of green scales curled around him. He blinked. Above him, Rhaegal's horned face came into focus.

"Thanks for that."

Rhaegal crooned softly at him. A gush of hot smoke warmed Jon's face. His cloak was soaked from the melted snow. At least Rhaegal had been courteous enough to keep him warm. He rested his heavy head on Jon's chest then. His bronze spikes tore at Jon's boiled leather, but he thought it best not to scold or complain.

Bronze eyes meeting gray. Once again, the heat poured into Jon's throat, a bite so fierce it near choked him. He blinked again, and for a moment he saw himself—long face streaked with ash, eyes lined with thin scars, beard shining with melted snowflakes.

It was an odd feeling, slipping into Rhaegal's eyes, then back into his own. With Ghost, the change had felt natural, even when he'd still fought his warging. But a dragon was no more Arya than it was a direwolf. Rhaegal was his mother's first, accepting Jon in a way neither of them seemed to fully understand. Ghost had been beside him since he was a newborn pup.

 _I'm a man and a warg, but I'm no dragon._

He scratched at Rhaegal's snout, over his softer nostrils and then under his chin.

"I shouldn't have avoided you, too."

Rhaegal snort felt like agreement. Jon eased himself from Rhaegal's coil of tail and wing and neck. He stayed only long enough to lull the dragon to sleep with soothing words and touches.

The hike back to Winterfell was cold and dark. Nobody questioned him when he passed through the gates covered in ash and a damp cloak.

His feet carried him across Winterfell's snowy training yard and to the remains of the First Keep. He made for the crypts, down, down, down the twisting stair. Damp earth swallowed him, the smell robust and warm, mingled with sharp stone and the acid of rust.

"Hello, wolf."

Ghost appeared from the darkness, a pale, lean shape between two pillars. He worried at Jon's forearm before returning to the statues he'd been beside. Jon followed him into the dark, and found himself before Lord Eddard and Lyanna. The direwolf sniffed around their stone feet, raised his leg on Brandon's stone wolf, and then settled between Jon's father and Lyanna. His red eyes peered at Jon in the dimness.

"I wish you'd told me." Jon stared up at Lord Eddard's solemn face. "Does it even make sense to hate and love you for it? Somehow I do."

He wasn't even mad that it was true anymore, not really. His fury was for the choices, the lies. For all three of them—Eddard, Lyanna, and _him_.

The dragon prince who'd whisked his mother off to Dorne. Who'd thought first of some foolish prophecy and second of his duty to the realm. Everything he'd done had aided Westeros's descent into war. Lyanna, too, must have played some part in that. Fifteen years old or not, she'd chosen to run off with a married prince. Together, they'd ignored duty and honesty and near every consequence for their actions. All to create him.

" _The dragon needed three heads," Bran had said. "He needed you."_

But he hadn't, Jon knew. Bran hadn't said much, but he'd told Jon enough to puzzle it out. Three children for three dragon heads. Rhaenys and Aegon. Somehow, Jon didn't see a second Aegon fitting into that too-well painted portrait.

 _Rhaegar wanted a Visenya, not a second son. Not me._

But Lyanna had. His mother must have cherished him. How could she not as his fragile new life had grown inside her? Perhaps she'd been as naive as Sansa once had. Thirteen and fifteen were not such an age difference, and Sansa had been lost in fairy tales and fantasies of knights and valor even then. If King's Landing had been different—if wretched Joffrey had been kinder—she very well might have stayed that way.

Was Lyanna like that, too?

As Jon stared at her sad face, he found it difficult to imagine. She was too much like Arya, in looks and from the few stories he'd heard growing up.

"Did you love him? Were you too young and smitten to understand what would happen? Did you think nobody would notice or care that you'd disappeared?"

The crown prince and the Warden of the North's only daughter running off together without any explanation.

Elia Martell abandoned and murdered.

Rhaenys and Aegon set aside by the annulment, perhaps disinherited, maybe even shunned as bastards afterward, if they'd lived and the dissolution of their mother's marriage had been upheld.

Lyanna might have been a foolish young maiden, but Rhaegar was a man grown, three-and-twenty, and a prince besides. He should have known better; should have cared more for his family and the realm than a prophecy.

And Jon could not forgive that. No matter his blood, he would never set aside a wife or a child or the father who'd raised him, not for a man like that.

Jon stared up at his father's stone face. "I'm a bastard, just as you and life made me, and I am _your_ son. Knowing the truth doesn't change that. After all these years, how could it?"


End file.
